from when on knee
To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth
For Human kind and fervent love of truth.
If, like their fathers, they have come to be
The wonder of the world, for liberty,
Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.

Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed
For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them
In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem;
So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed
Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame,
Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.

IX

Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when
White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore
And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador,
A continent, adrip with streams which, then,
Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken,
Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar
From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore,
Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?--you chant, "Amen."

Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation
Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef
To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief
In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation
Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief
Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.

[Illustration]

SONNETS

FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY

THE PROEM

Soar thou aloft, though thou ascend alone,
O Human Spirit! Thou canst not be lost.
What though yon stars, the azure's nightly frost
Melt dark, or mount round thee an arctic zone!
Thou hast sun-warmth and star-source of thine own.
If thou mount not, how bitter is the cost!
What anguish, when whirled down, or tempest tossed,
To know how high toward God thou mightst have flown!

Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb
The mountain and the star on trail of thee?
Thy wing-flash beams toward Man, and, if it be
True inspiration--whether thought sublime,
Or fervor for the Truth, or Liberty--
Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time.

THE ATLANTIC

Forming the great Atlantic, see God take
The mist from woe's white mountain, spring and stream,
The breath of man in frost, the spiral lean
From roof-cracked caves where, though the heart may break,
The soul will not lie torpid, like the snake,--
And battle smoke. On them He breathes with dream
And, Lo! an Angel with a sword agleam